The Relationship Between Physical Fitness Levels and Digit Ratio (2D:4D) of High School Students Engaged Actively in Sports

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the association between physical fitness and 2D:4D finger ratio of high school students engaged actively in sports. 23 licensed male athletes and 23 sedentary (n=46) high school students participated in the study voluntarily. The participants age, body weight, body mass index, 2D:4D finger measurement values were recorded and 20 meter shuttle run, 30 meter sprint, sit and reach test, standing long jump and hand grip strength tests were applied on the participants. The data obtained were assessed in SPSS 21 program and the results were assessed at p˂0.05 significance level. While the average age of athletes was 15.82±1.11 years, the average age of sedentary group was 15.13±0.96 years. While statistically significant difference was found between sedentary and athlete groups in terms of VO 2 max, right and left hand grip strength and long jump average values (p<0.05), no statistically significant difference was found between speed and flexibility measurement results (p>0.05). When the 2D:4D averages of sedentary and athlete groups were compared, statistically significant difference was found between right hand averages (p<0.05). When right and left hand 2D:4D was compared, no statistically significant difference was found in sedentary group (p>0.05), while significant difference was found in athletes (p<0.05). Statistically significant difference was found between 2D:4D averages of both hands with all physical fitness parameters (p<0.05). In the present study, finger ratio of the groups were found to be associated with some motoric and functional dominance parameters. Keywords: digit ratio, 2D:4D, physical fitness, high school student Vaeyens, R., Lenoir, M., Williams, A. M., & Philippaerts, R. M. (2008). Talent identification and development programmes in sport. Sports medicine, 38(9), 703-714. https://doi.

The relationship between digit ratio (2D:4D) and muscular fitness: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…It is important to acknowledge that muscular fitness is a multidimensional construct, and while it is specific to the muscle group, type of muscle action, muscle contraction, contraction velocity, equipment, and joint range of motion, we only included studies that measured muscular fitness using HGS. Several studies have examined relationships for other measures of muscular fitness, including lower body absolute strength (Eler, 2018a;Folland et al, 2012), upper body relative strength (Eklund et al, 2020;Güler, 2018;Kociuba et al, 2017;Kozieł et al, 2017), both lower body power (Eler, 2018a;Güler, 2018;Gümüs ¸& Tutkun, 2018;Hsu et al, 2018;Kociuba et al, 2017;Kozieł et al, 2017) and upper body power (Cho, 2020), and abdominal/core endurance (Kociuba et al, 2017;Kozieł et al, 2017). Collectively, most studies (Cho, 2020;Eklund et al, 2020;Eler, 2018a;Güler, 2018;Hsu et al, 2018;Kociuba et al, 2017;Kozieł et al, 2017) found that 2D:4D was a negligible-tomoderate negative correlate of other measures of muscular fitness, which broadly supports our results.…”

The relationship of the digit ratio (2D:4D) with body fat distribution and handgrip strength in medical students

“…Several studies reported that the relative lengths of the second finger to the fourth finger, known as the digit ratio (2D:4D ratio), is thought to be a strong indicator for testosterone exposure during the embryonic period 1,2,3 . Depending on the potency of prenatal hormones the 2D:4D ratio is sexually dimorphic, which is inversely proportional to testosterone level in males and directly proportional to estrogen level in females during embryonic period 1,2,3,4 . In general, because of the number of androgen receptors in the fourth finger is high, this finger is longer, and the 2D:4D ratio is less than one in male, while in female the second finger is longer, and this ratio is greater than one due to estrogen exposure 1,5,6 .…”